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Many professional development programs want to help teachers learn to use the project approach. Projects give teachers a structure to plan and implement engaging curriculum, teach through play and exploration, document children’s actions and language, and use these documents to assess children’s abilities, interests, and needs. But including the project approach in teacher education programs may also help prepare teachers to include children with special needs and differing abilities in their classrooms.

A group of faculty members at the University of Michigan researched the effects of requiring students to plan and implement a project during their student teaching semester. The students were placed in an inclusive setting, with cooperating teachers who modeled positive teacher-child interactions, shared information with student teachers, and gave students constructive feedback on their work. Their research indicates that exploring the project approach in a high quality inclusive field setting helps student teachers to:

1. Include more children with special needs in their curriculum planning

2. Learn how to plan for groups of mixed ability or mixed age children

3. Learn new strategies for understanding and documenting learning in nonverbal children

4. Learn that children with special needs are more capable than first imagined

5. Learn to use more open-ended and child-centered activities with a wide variety of materials

6. Increase appreciation for the diversity that children and families bring to programs

To learn more about this adult education strategy, see the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education published by the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators (NAECTE). www.naecte.org

Mary Donegan, Seong Bock Hong, Mary Trepanier-Street, & Caryn Finkelstein. (2005). "Exploring How Project Work Enhances Student Teachers’ Understanding of Children with Special Needs." Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 26, (1). pp.37-46

Contributed by Alison Lutton

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